David: Not at all. Don't worry about it.
Jenny writes: Hmm, I thought we feminists had pretty much proved that personal experience, analyzed collectively, IS political data. Guess that point hasn't been made well enough yet.
David: Actually, that's exactly what I wrote about in a previous message. But, I think you'd agree that doing the work of collecting and analyzing data on personal experience is a lot different from folks with an agenda pontificating their view of what "the people" supposedly think, pawning it off as objectivity. So, I think we agree. I think we actually agree on a lot of issues, Jenny, but it seems like you're taking a reactive stance.
David writes:
>In my opinion, it's far better to take a principled stance rather than a
>dogmatic one on what folks "have to" or "don't have to" support. And it's my
>understanding, based on the reading and studying I've been doing, that
unless
>the events that are now unfolding engender a strong workers' movement that
>does not cast its lot with the bourgeoisie in Washington, these wars will
>continue, on and on.
Jenny responds: Yeh, you keep saying that--where do you think that's gonna come from, if you do?
David: Uh... I just said where it would come from. I can't predict that that's what's going to happen, if that's what you want me to do. However, as a Marxist I do maintain a level of economic determinism, and I think that the poor conditions of wage workers in the United States-- lack of unions, low wages, long hours, etc.-- coupled with the downswing in the economy and the threat of workers participating in neverending war, may very well engender an increased level of class conscious. The global capitalist economy is STILL based on wage-labor and commodity production.
Perhaps I should ask you where the impetus to physically stop the "war on terrorism" is going to "come from" within the context of the "anti-war movement" as it stands? Remember, 1.5 million Iraqis have already died from U.N. sanctions.... that's half the number of people who died in the entire Vietnam war, and we're told that a war with Iraq hasn't even started yet!
Jenny: I'm not too convinced by the all-or-nothing rhetoric,
David: All or nothing rhetoric?! That is exactly what Yoshie seems to be supporting-- casting one's lot without criticism or alternative into a popular front with Stalinists and "progressive" pro-war-anti-Bush Democrats, i.e., capitalists, in order to determine whether or not Bush shoots Saddam Hussein point blank or merely bombs Iraqi civilians!
Jenny:
but I agree with the general idea that for people war is just an awful symptom of the general problem that we lack control over the conditions of our lives, never mind our
gov't's actions. So what's your program?
David: Yes, like I said, I think we do agree on the causes of war. As for my program, I've spelled it out several times on the list. In a word: to build the Labor Party into a genuine workers' party in the United States, a party that challenges the political power of Democrats and their strangle-hold on workers' rights. You are involved in the Labor Party, too, are you not? What are your objectives within it?
Best, David